Dallas Zoning Reform's First Draft Is Out: 400 Pages, Duplexes and ADUs, and Months of Public Debate Ahead

Dallas residents are getting their first look at a sweeping rewrite of the city's development code - roughly 400 pages that would decide what gets built where, in the first comprehensive zoning overhaul in more than four decades. The draft is meant to implement ForwardDallas 2.0, the land-use plan adopted in 2024, but unlike that policy guide, the development code is the legally enforceable rulebook itself.

The headline changes reach into single-family neighborhoods. Proposed R1 and R2 districts would permit duplexes under design standards meant to keep two-unit homes at the scale of the houses around them, and accessory dwelling units would be allowed across residential districts at up to 24 feet tall and 900 square feet, or 30 percent of the main house. The draft also proposes cottage courts, townhouse districts, a 20 percent height bonus for qualifying multifamily and mixed-use projects, and a pullback from the more than 1,200 planned development districts that now cover about a quarter of the city. An Anti-Displacement Overlay District, aimed at discouraging demolition of older homes in areas under redevelopment pressure, would take a three-fourths vote of the City Council to establish.

Nobody involved is calling this close to done. 'The devil will be in the details here, and that will be super important,' City Plan Commission chair Brent Rubin said at Thursday's briefing, and Planning & Development Director Emily Liu said the community gets 'at least four months' conversation about the first draft. Virtual discussions start November 18, with open houses at City Hall and recreation centers in December and January; the draft, comment forms and meeting list are at DallasZoningReform.com. Feedback feeds a second draft, which still has to pass the Zoning Ordinance Advisory Committee, the Plan Commission and the City Council.